To evaluate international best-practice Musical Inclusion models for application in Australia

My name is Graham Sattler, I am an Australian musician, educator and orchestra CEO, currently working out of Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. For the past two decades, having relocated from Sydney to central western NSW in 2001, I have been orientating my work and research around sociocultural development through group music activity. In other words, community music, inclusion, access and equity, and quality participatory music experiences for all have been my focus. I have a Diploma of Opera, Master of Performance (Conducting), a Graduate Certificate in the Psychology of Risk and PhD (Music Education). I was awarded a Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (NSW) in 2019, the purpose of which was: To evaluate international best-practice musical inclusion models for application in Australia. 

My approved itinerary would take me to locations at which formal community music (CM) leadership training was being offered; formal here being a euphemism for university-, or higher education institution-delivered. The rationale for focusing on formal leadership training as an indicator of a best-practice approach, was that my research and experience thus far indicated that an informed and structured training framework with a curriculum based on a balance of applied research and ongoing field experience was the most reliable setting for achieving and evaluating the manifold benefits of inclusive community music activity and the facilitation thereof. The itinerary was based on my enquiries through international (community music) contacts and colleagues, along with many hours of internet searching for less conspicuous ‘hotspots’ that may exist without an international profile. As a member of the International Society of Music Education and its specialty Community Music Activity commission, I was well placed to be aware, directly, or indirectly through those networks, of locations and institutions of interest. The itinerary, which comprised programs in the US, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Portugal, Norway and Armenia, remained largely intact during the pandemic delay, with a couple of minor changes only around contacts within host countries and the odd interruption to course delivery. At the time of my application, throughout the period since then, and still as I write, there is no such training available in Australia, neither is there within Australasia, and nor to my knowledge, across the Asia Pacific region. 

This report will be utilised as a tool for advocacy, a reference point for organisations in and around Australia that are open to the development or adoption of CM (leadership) training courses or modules; it may also form the basis of an external review document for feedback to the overseas institutions I visited, by way of an informed outsider perspective. I will use the report as a skeleton for presentations at and to universities, music schools, NSW regional conservatoriums (of which there are 17 at the time of writing), and professional performing arts organisations with outreach or community engagement programs. It will also provide a basis for any media appearances (mainly radio and podcast) and professional development sessions for CM practitioners. My intended audience, therefore, encompasses the specific discipline (CM), the music education and performance industries, expert groups (CM leaders) and community (university of the third age, service clubs etc.).

The highlights of the trip were interactions with people, usually current students or recent graduates of CM leadership training, whose commitment to the values of CM, and conviction in its purpose and value, were at least as powerful as mine. Students several decades younger than me (younger, even, than I was when I entered the discipline) spoke with utter clarity about the why, how, and what of CM. This was surprising, delightful, reassuring, and convincing in terms of how they arrived at that place. The reason that the students were so clear in their grasp of and passion for CM was, of course, leadership training delivered by confident, artistic, pedagogically capable, compassionate, caring teachers who demonstrate those same qualities in their interactions with students and community members alike. This was a consistent feature of interviews in Los Angeles, Waterloo, Limerick, York, Aberdeen, Stord, Lisbon, and Yerevan.  

I commenced my Fellowship with the thesis that effective inclusive community music activity is most likely to occur when it is led (facilitated, guided or coordinated) by individuals possessing expertise in group pedagogy, entrepreneurship, artistic capability, communication and advocacy; along with confidence and insight. Further, it had been my observation that those skills and capabilities could only be reliably developed though training and/or education. That thesis was tested in presentation and discussion at each of my Fellowship locations, including a two-day gathering of CM leaders from across the UK (Training the Community Musician, Gateshead, March 21 & 22). I was thrilled to receive feedback and consideration on my presentations in each location from students and faculty alike. It was from feedback after I left Waterloo (week two) that I amended my theoretical model to add intrinsic motivation and courage to the list of requisite skills and capabilities for effective CM leaders.            

 It is clear to me, as I tested and refined my theories through discussions across the northern hemisphere, that with the possible exception of intrinsic motivation and courage, the central elements of effective inclusive CM leadership require education or training, with a balance of theoretical and in-the-community practical experience.

My recommendations for how these findings can be applied in an Australian context are as follows:

·      Music education organisations should recognise quality (inclusive) community music leadership as a practical and valued outcome. Courses that identify and serve the discipline should exist in each state, and be given equal status to performance, composition and musicology programs. Everything from micro-credentials (short course certification) through to undergraduate majors and postgraduate degrees in community music could be introduced to serve the training needs of practitioners with aspirations to contribute to social cohesion and community wellbeing though programs in a broad variety of settings.

·      Music education and training organisations should adopt work-integrated learning, ongoing field experience, as a substantial curricular component of CM leadership programs. Learning, not just observing or experiencing, in a relevant industry setting is a vital part of safeguarding the transition from student to practitioner in the CM field, it should be considered a necessary pillar of quality leadership training.

·      Performance entities such as orchestras, choirs, opera companies etc., and community organisations including hospitals, retirement homes, pre-schools, schools, migrant centres, activity centres etc. provide terrific partnership opportunities for workplace learning. Course providers should establish these types of industry partnerships in co-delivery of training.

·      Not-for-profit organisations such as community music schools (and in NSW, regional conservatoriums) should consider developing partnerships with degree-granting institutions to co-deliver qualifications in CM leadership, recognising the increasing interest in the field and the corresponding growth of activity.

·      Higher education and training organisations are increasingly identifying (local) community engagement as a priority. The manifold benefits of engagement in accessible, inclusive, group musicking are becoming universally accepted and broadly understood. Organisations with a capacity to develop, promote, and deliver quality training in leadership of such activity should seriously consider the opportunity (alone or in partnership) to create such an environment in our region. Training opportunities in insightful CM leadership can also significantly benefit national and state school music curriculum delivery, social work (in multiple environment applications) and music therapy.